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Neil Young book chronicles fight to improve digital music
Music legend Neil Young has spent several years trying (and failing) to push high-resolution music to the masses. A new book by Young tells the story of how the Canadian songwriter set out to develop Pono, his $400 portable digital music player that went out of business in 2016. Co-written by Young and former Pono Chief Operating Officer Phil Baker, To Feel The Music: A Songwriter's Quest to Save High-Quality Audio is set to be released on September 9th. Along with details on Pono, readers will also learn about how Neil Young came to develop Xstream, his high-resolution streaming platform, as well his decision to release his entire catalog online for free.
Neil Young's Pono will launch an adaptive bitrate streaming service
Neil Young could be about to launch the most interesting streaming service to come along in a long while. No, really. Young recently spoke at length with Rolling Stone's Music Now podcast. While mostly discussing music, he also divulged his future plans for Pono. Launched in 2014 on Kickstarter as a high-resolution music player and download service, Pono captured the imagination of select audiophiles and not many others. Its total sales were in the tens of thousands as of last year, and its download service is in hiatus after the company running it was acquired. Now, Young's company is planning a streaming service. What's interesting about it is not the fact that it's promising to stream 192kHz, 24-bit resolution audio. Although it totally is. No, what's interesting is that it's promising high-quality adaptive bitrate streaming, which would be a first for a streaming service. See, when you load up your music app of choice, you typically pick a bitrate for downloads, and a bitrate for streaming. In Spotify, for example, you can choose from anywhere between 96kbps and 320kbps bitrates for streaming and downloads. What Pono is proposing is to do away with those designations.
Neil Young's Pono is having expansion and funding troubles
Neil Young says the Pono music player and its accompanying high-quality music service aren't doing too badly. He also admits, however, that things haven't been easy since he and his team managed to raise $6 million via Kickstarter. In a Facebook post, the music legend writes that the company still doesn't have a proper CEO since the last one left over a year ago. Young is the acting head honcho, but he'd prefer a "proven business leader" to take over the role. In addition, his team's efforts to expand to Canada, UK and Germany and open up www.ponomusic.com in those areas are being hampered by lack of funding -- clearly, that Kickstarter money is not nearly enough. Young says, however, that the store will open in those countries as soon as the company has the means to make it happen.
Neil Young's high-definition Pono Music is coming to cars
In addition to a triangle-shaped player, Neil Young's Pono effort also includes a music store for purchasing high-definition tunes. Here at CES, the man behind the project announced that he's teaming up with Harman to bring the higher-quality tracks to vehicles. Harman is a big name in infotainment and in-car audio, and it's already been working on solutions to make compressed audio sound better. Compared to other high-resolution players, Pono is competitively priced at $400, and if you opt in to the ecosystem, it looks like your next car could have the tech to handle all that music, too. If it has a Harman stereo installed, of course.
Finally, we heard what Neil Young's Pono music player sounds like
Herbie Hancock just tickled my ears. Not kidding. Adele did too. But Herbie tickled them better. No, this isn't some weird dream/nightmare. This is Pono. Go listen to Hancock's "Watermelon Man" now (link here). We'll wait. Back? What you just heard was a compressed version of Hancock's classic. What I just heard was not, and the difference is quite dramatic (even over reasonably priced headphones). Good thing too, given that Neil Young's quest with Pono has been to guide us away from the tyranny of the heavily compressed MP3, and steer us to the calm, warm waters of uncompressed audio. But, even though we've followed the Pono story quite closely, we learned a little more about the curious yellow prism today, too.
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Neil Young on digital audio: You're doing it wrong
When news first broke of Neil Young's plans to serve up high-resolution listening to audiophiles last year, we wondered how he'd get folks to splurge for a $400 player and re-buy their existing libraries. Sure, six to 30 times the resolution of MP3s looks great on paper, but will we really be able to hear the difference? The rock icon says yes, and it's because there's nothing that's currently available that even comes close to Pono. Young says that existing audio formats are unable to adequately present a full range of tones, so he "decided to create an ecosystem that provided exactly what the artist created." From the bits of info we've seen so far, the outfit claims people who love music and really want to be able to hear songs as those artists tracked them will be sold easily.
Why Pono's massive Kickstarter success means absolutely nothing to Apple
Neil Young's pet project to revolutionize how everyone listens to music -- called Pono -- launched its Kickstarter campaign a couple of days ago and quickly passed its goal by a wide margin. With nearly $2.5 million pledged as of this writing, it's clear that there's a market for a lossless portable audio device, but what a lot of people are getting wrong is the idea that the Pono is somehow an iPod competitor. I've seen headlines suggesting the Pono "wants to put iPods out of commission," and that it's a "high-fidelity iPod competitor." It won't, and it's not. There's no point in arguing how much better the "ultra high-resolution" audio of the Pono (192 kHz, 24 bit) sounds compared to what most of us are used to -- mainly because even the experts can't agree on whether it really matters. If you're an audiophile who spends thousands of dollars on audio equipment and rides mass transit while wearing $300 headphones, you'll convince yourself that it's worth a purchase whether your enjoyment of the music increases or not. Young's portable oasis of music is as niche as a product can get, and aside from the thin cross-section of iPod users who consider themselves to be top-tier, obsessive music buffs, there's not really a competition happening between the Pono and Apple's iDevices. Portability Lossless audio isn't small or compact, and apparently neither is the hardware required to play it. The Pono is bulky and awkward, and it's not going to replace anyone's iPod in the gym or on a bike trail. The Pono is all about a "no compromises" approach, but it looks like the biggest compromise might be walking around in public with a triangular music device in your pocket. You carry an iPod because it's all your music in one place and its size is so negligible that there's no point in not taking it everywhere you go. You'd carry a Pono because you believe the format is worth it, in spite of the unfortunate design. Battery life iPod shuffle - 15 hours of music playback iPod nano - 30 hours of music playback iPod classic - 36 hours of music playback iPod touch - 40 hours of music playback Pono - 8 hours of music playback This one is self-explanatory. Storage The Pono will ship with 128 GB of storage (64 GB built-in, 64 GB via miniSD card). That's a pretty huge amount for an iPod, but if you're downloading music at the "so-good-you-can-feel-it" quality that the Pono was made to hold, it's not quite so spacious. 128 GB can hold approximately 800 of the highest-quality recordings the PonoMusic shop will offer. By comparison, the base model of the iPod nano (16 GB) holds about 4,000 songs at the quality that most of us are used to downloading from iTunes. Price During the Kickstarter campaign, the Pono is being offered for $300, but the retail price will be $400. For perhaps the first time ever, Apple's devices are the cheaper option, by a long shot. Anyone in the market for a new iPod is probably not going to decide to spend double or triple the amount on a Pono. Just a guess. Music Pono is pushing its PonoMusic shop as the place to buy your high-quality tunes, noting that it's scored deals with "all the major record labels," without going into actual specifics. The Kickstarter FAQ does, however, offer an estimated price for a digital album off of PonoMusic: $14.99 - $24.99. If you haven't purchased any music off of iTunes lately, suffice it to say that it's significantly cheaper than that. There's also the matter of needing something to plug into your Pono in order to actually enjoy the more expensive "high def" audio; Listening to the 24-bit tunes with the same earbuds you wear during your morning run completely defeats the point, so anyone leaving their iPod behind for the Pono will also need to invest in a decent pair of headphones at the very least. Long live Pono It might sound like I'm ragging on the Pono here, but I promise that I have nothing against the device or its creators. What I do take issue with is those who suggest that the iPod or iTunes will somehow be affected by its existence. It's a gadget with a very specific purpose made for a very specific user who will probably really enjoy it. But what it won't do is have a noticeable effect on Apple's bottom line or its products going forward.
Neil Young's music player for audiophiles reaches Kickstarter on March 15th
We now know how Neil Young plans to make his dreams of high-quality digital music come true: crowdfunding. The artist's company PonoMusic is launching a Kickstarter campaign on March 15th that will let you reserve the PonoPlayer, Young's long-teased, audiophile-grade portable jukebox. The 128GB device will set you back a whopping $399 when it goes on sale (less with the Kickstarter discount), but its creators are promising audio fidelity worthy of the price tag. The hardware will offer natural-sounding digital filtering from Ayre Acoustics, ESS' most advanced digital-to-analog converter and "perfectly flat" frequency response with most any set of headphones. As you might expect, there will be a matching online store that delivers high-resolution tunes. The PonoMusic team hasn't said just when its media player will reach your pocket, but it shouldn't be too long before you're listening to a pristine version of Harvest while on the move.
Neil Young's Pono might launch early 2014, other details blurry like a hurricane
When Neil Young revealed Pono on the Letterman show, he mainly talked about how the high-fidelity music service would work. Now that Young and his team have announced an early 2014 target launch, it's looking more likely that Pono might actually happen. In a statement posted on Facebook, the team says it will launch both its online music store for high-quality audio and its player -- an updated version of the one shown on Letterman -- at the same time. Young claims the service can replicate the quality of music played in a studio, but we'll have to wait until next year to find out if it can actually deliver. Sadly, Team Pono isn't sharing other details, but we'll keep an eye out for future updates. [Image credit: CBS]
Neil Young's Pono music service wants to democratize high-quality audio (video)
Neil Young isn't shy when it comes to embracing new technology, something he put beyond question with his latest appearance on The Late show with David Letterman. The artist took the opportunity to reveal plans for his high-fidelity Pono music service. The aim is to tackle the poor quality in which he believes most people receive their music these days -- the humble MP3. Young's offering would comprise a three-pronged approach, including a music store with high-resolution recordings, a digital-to-analog style conversion technology, and portable hardware to listen to it all with. The simple intention is to offer music as it was originally intended to be heard, but at this time there's no detail as to what this actually entails (sorry specification fans). According to Rolling Stone, the big three labels are interested, and the goal is to unify, rather than diversify, the quality of recorded content. The Pono players (that yellow wedge you see above) will serve up your existing catalog, but you'll likely need to re-buy some of your collection if you want the holistic experience. With no cards fully on the table, we're at the ransom of Young's celebrity endorsements, which all claim that the benefits are tangible. Young, of course, says "You can't get better than this, this is what they do in the studio," but until we get some details, or ears on, everybody knows this is nowhere. [Image credit:CBS]
